


On the anti-venom properties of tentacula roots

by ElisAttack



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling, Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Flower Shop, Alternate Universe - Harry Potter Setting, Christmas Fluff, Herbology, M/M, Mutual Pining, No Werewolves
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-11
Updated: 2016-12-11
Packaged: 2018-09-07 22:50:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8819239
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ElisAttack/pseuds/ElisAttack
Summary: “I didn’t know you were interested in herbology,”  Derek says trying and failing to ignore the fact that Stiles read his dissertation.  He’s pretty sure he’s redder than a toadstool.“Dude, I work in a greenhouse.”  Stiles sends him a cheeky grin.  “Of course I like plants.”  Or the one where Stiles asks Derek out on a poorly disguised date.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [merlshmallow](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merlshmallow/gifts).



> I've always wanted to write a Harry Potter au, and when my giftee suggested they wanted one, along with a flowershop au, I couldn't resist...
> 
> This is for merlshmallow.tumblr.com, happy holidays!

Derek has never loved and hated a job more than the one he is currently employed at.  Don’t get him wrong.  He loves herbology—if he could spend the rest of his life taking care of plants, he would. 

When he was a little kid, Derek used to spend all his free time in his dad’s garden.  He would stick his stubby little fingers into gnome holes, laughing when they would nibble back.  His dad used to get so angry when he would see the gnomes—grabbing them and swinging them around his head until they gained enough momentum to be launched over the garden hedge.

They would always stumble back in the end—his dad’s garden was the healthiest one on the block and the gnomes couldn’t resist it.  

Derek smiles at the fond memory as he wrangles a set of bouncing bulbs back into their proper containers.

“You look like you could use an extra set of hands.”

Derek startles, looking up.  A bouncing bulb almost wiggles free, but he catches it at the last moment, saving himself the headache of the century.

Standing before him with a smug smile on his face, tufts of hair sticking up in all directions is the bane of Derek’s existence.  The reasons he both hates and loves this job, and why he sometimes can’t get any work done at all.

Stiles Stilinski, with his gorgeous eyes and pouty pink lips.  If people could be voted into office based upon facial features alone, Stiles would be the minister for magic (to Derek’s heart).  And that’s not even taking into account just how smart he is, not to mention how sweet and kind.  

Derek met Stiles his first day on the job, and was instantly smitten.  

He’s such a snarky little shit, and Derek used to find it so hard to tell when he was joking, or being completely serious.  But once Derek got to know him better, he started noticing the little things about him that make him so amazing.  Stiles is an asshole, there’s no doubt about that, but once he cares about someone, he would defend them until his last breath.

Heck, he saw it happen on his first day, when a baby devil’s snare got loose and tried to strangle Lydia.  Stiles fended it off with only a garden rake and lighter to his name.  He made a mess of the greenhouse—and Lydia’s hair—but at least she got out of the ordeal alive.

“I’m okay, thanks.”  Derek says awkwardly, one hand still grabbing onto a wiggling bouncing bulb.  Stiles grins, leaning against the trough opposite, the absolute picture of nonchalance in his muggle clothes.  

Derek has to wear his robes, as the uniform requires.  Stiles gets away with it since he’s best friends with their boss’ daughter.  The other employees hate him for it, but Stiles tends to shake off their glares without it affecting him at all.  It’s admirable.

“Are you doing anything after work?”  Stiles asks, “A few of us—meaning me and Lyds—were thinking of grabbing some butterbeers, if you’d like to join us?”

Derek sticks the bouncing bulb into the dirt, where it instantly calms down.  Derek purses his lips, wondering if Stiles is asking just to be polite.  

The three of them are the only ones on shift during the holidays, but Derek tends to segregate himself from the others.  He wants to get work done at work, instead of letting Stiles work him to distraction.  Maybe Stiles figured Derek feels left out?  Whatever his reason, Derek doesn’t want his pity.

“I’m fine, thanks,”  Derek says shortly, turning back to his potting, but not before he sees Stiles frown.

“Dude, come on, we hardly ever get a chance to pick your brains.”  Stiles whines and Derek tries not to find it adorable, failing miserably.  “You never chat at work—ever the dutiful employee—but Lydia and I have been itching to grill you on your dissertation for ages.”

“You want to talk about herbology?”  Derek asks, taken aback.  He always thought Martin’s Herbs and Herbology was just a job for Stiles.  When they’re on break together, Stiles goes on and on about his dad’s adventures as an auror.  Derek assumed he was saving up enough money to take the exam. 

“Hell yes.”  Stiles grins.  “You’ve got a degree in Herbology from one of the best wizarding schools in America, of course I want to know more about you.   Especially your dissertation on venomous tentacula, It was  _ such _ an interesting read.”

“I didn’t know you were interested in herbology,”  Derek says trying and failing to ignore the fact that Stiles read his dissertation.  He’s pretty sure he’s redder than a toadstool.

“Dude, I work in a greenhouse.”  Stiles sends him a cheeky grin.  “Of course I like plants.”  

Derek blushes.  He feels embarrassed that Stiles knows more about Derek, than Derek knows about him.  “I guess I could spare some time.”

Stiles throws his fist in the air.  “That’s what I’m talking about.  We’ll meet you by the front at six.”

Derek opens his mouth, but before he gets a chance to tell Stiles that he doesn’t like to apparate, Stiles jogs off.  

***

Stiles grabs a pack of every flavour beans and slides onto the seat beside Lydia.  “I think he hates me.”

Lydia doesn’t even look up from her book.  “I’ve been telling you for ages, Stiles, he has such a huge crush on you, everyone sees it, except you.  His eyes trail after you like a lovesick puppy, when you walk by his station.  It’s frankly disgusting.”

Stiles gnaws on his bottom lip.  “He would ask me out if he did, wouldn’t he?”

Lydia rolls her eyes.  “Just like you ask him out, right?”

“I’ll have you know, I just asked him if he wanted to get butterbeers and talk shop, and he said yes.”  Lydia looks up, a surprised look on her face, and Stiles is wounded by her disbelief, truly.  

“I don’t believe you.”

“I did!”  Stiles exclaims, before saying sheepishly, “But I said you’d be there, soo…”

“I have no intention of third wheeling on your pathetic excuse for a date.”

“Lyds, please.”  Stiles pouts, letting his eyes get all watery, knowing that it’s her weakness.  “You wouldn’t abandon me, right?”

He can practically see her resolve crumbling when she says,  “Alright.  But you’re buying my drinks.”

“Deal.”

***

Derek stands awkwardly by the front desk, hat in his hands as he waits for Lydia and Stiles to emerge from the depths of the greenhouse.  

It’s snowing like crazy outside, and Derek’s contemplating cancelling.  The greenhouse isn’t hooked up to a floo network, and Derek has been scared of apparating ever since he got splinched during his exam.

Usually he takes muggle transit to work, but he doubts it’s running in this weather.  

After a few more minutes, the snow falling heavier and heavier, he decides to tell Stiles that he’s cancelling, then call his sister to pick him up.  He enchanted her snow tires a few years ago to be skidproof, so her muggle car should be fine in the snow.

“Hey, you ready?”  Stiles pops up from around the corner, Lydia trailing after.  She gets one good look at the front windows, and makes a face.

“I’m not taking your sad excuse for a vehicle in that weather, Stiles, I’ll meet you at the pub,”  She says shortly, “Don’t make me wait,”  She apparates on the spot with a loud crack.  

Stiles shrugs as if he expected her to do just that, spinning a set of car keys on one finger, “Guess it’s just you and me, buddy.”  He blinks.  “Unless of course you want to apparate too instead of driving with me, it’s okay , I’m used to it by now.”

Stiles looks so dejected, Derek can’t bear to tell him he wanted to cancel on him.  Instead, he smiles and nods.  

Stiles grins like the sun, “Come on then, I’m parked real close.”

It’s only when they’re inside Stiles’ robin’s egg blue Jeep, shaking snow out of their hair and off their clothes, that Derek thinks to ask.  “Why didn’t you just apparate with Lydia?”

Stiles looks over at him, a puzzled look on his face.  “I thought you knew.  I’m a squib.”

Derek blinks.  He didn’t know that, and considering his feelings for Stiles, he should have known that. 

When Derek doesn’t say anything, Stiles expression drops into one of such profound disappointment.  “You can leave if you want, I won’t feel  _ too _ offended.”  He says, even though his eyes say something else entirely.  If Derek counted among many of the witches and wizards who hated squibs, he thinks Stiles would go out of his way to avoid him.  He would probably even get a few death glares sent his way.

Fortunately, growing up a half-blood—the son of a muggle father and witch mother—taught Derek something about discrimination. 

“I don’t want to leave,”  Derek says resolutely,  “I want to stay with you.”  

Stiles’ eyes grow wide, and Derek thinks he blushes in the low lighting.  “Well, in that case, let’s head out before the storm gets worse.”

Stiles pulls out of the lot, and soon they’re on their way.  Visibility is low, but the Jeep is thankfully enchanted.  Stiles must have had a family member or friend enchant it for him, because the Jeep does not skid even once.

“I’m glad you decided to come,”  Stiles says after a few minutes of silence.

“I can’t believe you actually read my dissertation,”  Derek says in return.

“Yeah, of course I did.  I like to know the people I’m working with.”

“I thought you wanted to be an auror?”  Derek asks before wincing at his insensitivity.  Squibs can’t be aurors.

“Nah, maybe when I was younger,”  Stiles says, not bothered at all by Derek’s question.  “But my mom was really into herbology.  She kept a small greenhouse in our garden, supplying the town’s potions shop.”  Stiles smiles softly.  “She taught me that I didn’t need magic to care for magical plants.”

Derek remembers when he first met Stiles.  He was fending off devil’s snare with a rake and lighter, when any other wizard would have just cast a lumos charm.

“Your mom sounds amazing,”  Derek says surely.  She made Stiles who he is today, any lady who could do that, is brilliant in his books.

“Yeah, she was,”  Stiles says sadly.  “She died a few years back, but when I’m working with plants, it’s like she’s never really gone.  You know what I mean?”

Derek thinks of his dad.  “Yeah, I do.”

The Jeep rolls to a halt, right in front of the pub.  

The warmth from the fireplace hits him like fire seed to the face when he walks into the building.  He dusts the snow off his cloak, then follows after Stiles.  

Lydia sits at a booth with a girl cuddled up really close.  The girl faces Lydia, but she sports a vaguely recognizable head of hair.

“Cora?”  Derek asks, surprised, stopping in his tracks to see his little sister turning towards him.  The flirty smirk she was wearing slides right off her face.

“ _ Derek _ ?”  

“I’m guessing you two know each other,”  Lydia states.

“He’s my brother, babe,”  Cora says, linking her fingers with Lydia’s.

“ _ Babe _ ?”  Derek’s eyebrows shoot up to his hairline.  “Lydia’s the girl you’re bringing home to meet mom?”

“Yeah, why, you got a problem with that?”  Cora glares, hackles raised.

Derek raises his palms, “No problem whatsoever, I’m just surprised, is all.  I didn’t know you knew each other.”

“Stiles introduced us,”  Lydia says, sipping her butterbeer, somehow not getting any foam whatsoever on her upper lip.

“We met at softball,”  Stiles says, reaching over the table to perform some sort of coordinated handshake with Derek’s sister, fistpumps and all.

For some explicable reason Cora decided to join a muggle softball team in high school, instead of her school’s quidditch team.  For years after, it was softball  _ this _ , and softball  _ that _ .  Derek was just glad it was Laura who had to drive her to practice when she was younger, or he would’ve never heard the end of it.

“He’s the uncoordinated lump I keep telling you about,”  Cora says, smirking at Stiles.

Stiles frowns, climbing into the other side of the booth.  “Hey, I resent that.”

Derek slides in after him, and when their thighs touch, Derek’s heart starts beating overtime.  Cora glances at him with a knowing look on her face.  She’s going to tease him about this until the day he dies.

When the waiter comes over, they place their orders.  After the waiter comes back with two mugs of steaming butterbeer, Stiles steers the conversation to the topic of herbology, the whole reason Derek was invited out in the first place.

“So, venomous tentacula?”  Stiles turns to Derek with a smile on his face.  He’s so close, Derek can smell the butterscotch on his breath.  Stiles’ eyes twinkle in the firelight.  He’s so beautiful, and Derek thinks he’s going to faint by the time this conversation gets through.

“Urg,”  Cora groans, “I don’t want to hear about this, c’mon.”  She tugs on Lydia’s arm, sliding out of the booth.

“I agree,”  Lydia says slyly, “We should leave them to it.”  

“But, you want to hear about venomous tentacula too,  _ don’t you _ ?”  Stiles squeaks, eyes panicked.  Derek can’t help but feel like he’s missing something.

Lydia shrugs. “Not really.”  She picks up her mug, and throws an arm around Cora waist, swaggering off to find another booth. 

“Traitor, you’re paying for your own drinks,”  Stiles hisses after her.

Lydia calls over her shoulder,  “Worth it.”

They sit in silence for one long second before Derek breaks it, confused.  “I thought you said Lydia wanted to talk herbology too?”

Stiles rests his head on his folded arms upon the table, the very picture of defeat.  Derek can’t see his face, but the tips of his ears look bright red.  

“Hey.”  Derek rests a hand on his shoulders.  “Are you okay?”  

Stiles shakes his head.  

“What’s wrong?”  Derek asks gently.

“I’m embarrassed,”  Stiles says sheepishly, finally looking up.  His face is splotchy red, blush high on his cheeks.  He’s never looked more adorable than he does now.  Not even that time he showed up to work wearing an elf hat with bells on the ends, and he handed out muggle candies.  Or when Derek caught him telling the mimbulus mimbletonia a bedtime story while it softly crooned at him.

Stiles looks at Derek with a sheepish smile on his face, and Derek’s never wanted to kiss him more.

“About what?”  He asks, instead of actually kissing Stiles.  Something that could only end in disaster.

Stiles groans, collapsing back down onto his folded arms.  “Everything.”

“I don’t think you’ve got anything to be embarrassed about.”

“I got my feelings all over you,”  Stiles says, turning his head, so he peeks at Derek with one eye.  As if he’s preparing himself for Derek to get up and walk away, and he both wants, and doesn’t want, to see it happen.

Instead of doing that, Derek asks, “Feelings?  You have feelings… What kind of feelings?”

“Smoochy feelings,”  Stiles mumbles.

“ _ Smoochy feelings _ ,”  Derek repeats incredulously,  “That you happened to get all over me?” 

Stiles nods.

“Well, it just so happens, I don’t mind that you got your smoochy feelings all over me,”  Derek states, half unbelieving that he just used the phrase ‘smoochy feelings’ two times in a row.

Stiles sits up in a rush, eyes wide with disbelief.

“You have smoochy feelings for me too?”

“Firstly, let’s stop saying ‘smoochy feelings,’”  Derek says,  “But yes, I like you too.”

“Oh,  _ wow _ , okay,”  Stiles says, flustered.  He bites his bottom lip nervously.  “I really like you, alot.”

“I think we’ve established that,”  Derek says breathlessly, trying to ignore the way Stiles is working his lip to redness.

“Like you’re so smart and everything, and I really did read your dissertation, don’t think it was just something I used as a fishing line to draw you in.  The section where you proposed studying venomous tentacula roots in order to develop a proper antivenom, sent shivers down my spine.”

Derek’s heart skips a beat.  “Did you like it when my research supported singing it lullabies in order to—”

“—perform root extraction?  Yeah I  _ really _ did,”  Stiles whispers, leaning closer.  I also caught that pun when you compared the irregular formation of buds to Witch Weekly’s obsession with the minister for magic’s robe collection—”

“It was  _ budding _ on ridiculous,”  They both say at the same time, bursting into giggles like a couple of school boys.

“That was a good one,”  Stiles grins, wiping tears from the corner of his eyes.  Ducking his head, Derek smiles into his butterbeer.  

“You’re cute when you smile,”  Derek says.

“Not as cute as you,”  Stiles says, pointing to Derek’s cheek, “You get dimples, right here.”

“So you do,”  Derek points out.

“You’re  _ both _ disgustingly cute,”  Cora says, walking up to their booth.  She nods to Lydia, where she stands by the fireplace.  “We’re heading out.”  She says just as Lydia disappears in a flash of green flame.  “I’ll see you at Moms in a few days.  Don’t do anything I won’t do.”

Derek blushes.  “Shut up,”  He calls after her, as she jogs to join Lydia.  She sends him a jaunty wave as she too disappears into the floo network.

“Want another butterbeer?”  Stiles asks after a moment.

“Do I ever.”

After they leave the pub—Derek deciding to let Stiles drop him home instead of taking the floo—they warm up in the Jeep, Derek’s hands resting on the radiator.  

Stiles starts the Jeep, and he reaches for Derek’s hand, linking their fingers together over the gear shift.  Stiles smiles widely, as his fingers tighten aground Derek’s.

“Want to go out tomorrow after work?”  Stiles asks as he pulls off into the street.

“On a date?”

Stiles nods.  “Of course.”

Derek smiles to himself.  “Yeah, I’d like that.”

Derek doesn’t think he’s ever loved a job more than the one he is currently employed at.

 


End file.
